This really demonstrates how quickly any brand-related message could peel through the Internet, eventually hitting a large percent of the FB user group, while also likely generating multiple impressions for many people.

This is a nice partnership deal between the fast-growing Instagram and a photo printing service. Both should benefit from this ‘clicks-and-mortar’ combo. Companies without a natural online-offline relationship should consider such partnerships to expand their touchpoints.

If there’s one ad format I’m most curious about, it’s sponsored stories. This is the leading edge of content marketing, and while the creatives are less than dynamic, they’re bringing together interesting elements: The story, the people related to it, and even what they’re saying about it.

This really replicates much of what’s been known about website page viewing (e.g., content at the top gets viewed the most), but it’s a quick read and is certainly worth the separate social media analysis.

Gamification has garnered a lot of buzz, and many of the projected use cases proposed have been pretty obvious. What I like about this is, it’s employee focused instead of customer. That may sound backwards, but employees are far more likely to use it when they’re the ones getting the potential bonus.

A very simple premise — is content an expense or an asset. I really like the way this post frames content as an asset. While I’m not a CPA, it continues providing value long after it’s posted, which seems to be the trait of an asset.

Henry Ford said something to the effect of “If we’d have listened to our customers, we’d have designed faster horses”. Steve Jobs was known for paying very little attention to what his customers said. A quick read of the comments shows how resistant people are to change. Comment threading has been widely practiced on numerous leading online publications, and from experience, I’d say to good effect.

Given that so many CMOs have interest in content marketing, it only makes sense that there’s going to be a lot of interest around the merger of content and paid media. One way is to drive your paid media to content. More interesting is dynamically placing your content into paid media. This also provides an opportunity for online advertising to greatly differentiate itself from offline media.

There’s certainly no shortage of data these days. But most of it looks at what’s happened, and stops there. This tool is an attempt to project those trend lines into the future. Something a lot of trendcasters could find useful.

Facebook is again showing it’s 800lb gorilla nature, as it shows progress in areas seemingly owned by other social networks. As books like ‘Outliers’ have pointed out, though, the network with the most value business-wise may lie outside our traditional business boundaries.

I still think Events are vastly underused on Facebook. They have a semi-permanent placement within a Facebook users page, they enable a pre and post event approach to distributing promotional messages and then collecting event assets like photos and videos, and lastly, they’re a great way to encourage networking among the attendees of an event.

One of the more interesting battles in the mobile space is going to be around mobile payment platforms. Looks like a lot of manufacturers are joining forces to take on Apple. Of course, collaboration among manufacturers has never been their strength. Perhaps Google’s interest in NFC can be the connective tissue.

While focusing on what problem does a new idea solve isn’t really ground-breaking, the writer’s post examples, both good and bad, of companies that tried to predict the future. Also note the Second Life enthusiasts (employees?) posting in support of SL in the comments.

Some fantastic stats in this. One in great support of building Facebook communities and posting regularly is the comScore stat that brands who post daily will reach 22% of their fan base in a given week. And for brands who can generate higher than average engagement, those numbers will be even better.

What’s most interesting here is that about a year ago, surveys were stating that the reason people “Like” a brand’s Facebook page was to get information on special products and pricing. What this is indicating is that the reasons are moving towards more emotionally-focused issues, including simply support for the brand. If this tracks, it certainly indicates not only an opportunity, but a requirement for brands to truly engage and inspire their Facebook communities.

I think the challenge for Google+ has been that it’s very difficult to catch a competitor in a social network by instantly adding complex features when people aren’t already familiar with a simpler version of your tool. Google needs to focus on taking all the info they have on us, giving us good content recommendations, and then making that easier to share — not giving us more complicated ways of segmenting our fans and then sharing our info.

A longish article (by blog standards), but an interesting view of how Google sees the data game differently from Facebook. It makes sense, but I think they still have a big concern around Facebook stealing so much computing time from other sites.

An insightful POV on the potential behind Google+. What I like about these advantages is that they’re consumer-centric in that they could go a long way to make my social life both easier and better. Better through making it easier to generate quality content. Early adopters will likely lead the charge on this, and if they find Google+ to give them faster access to better data, then Facebook will have a formidable challenger.

Imagine the post office as a progressive organization able to adapt and, yes, pivot as technology throws it’s business model curveballs. This should be motivation for any brand concerned about changing business models.

Some good data in this story about a recent Forrester study. Bottom line is while tablets are often lumped into mobile, we’re seeing more and more evidence that tablets are a more distinct screen experience.

It’s no secret that one of the biggest challenges in app production is getting noticed in the app store. This is an interesting app idea — to help you discover the most relevant apps — but there’s still a chicken and the egg situation. How will people discover this app?

While this gets into some higher levels than non-search people may be able track, the upshot is, if you want to improve your seo standings today and even moreso in the future, get people to share your content.

According to a recent survey by Effie and Mashable, 87% of marketers said social media was “important” or “very important” to achieving their biggest marketing goal this year. So we know social is a key marketing activity for many leading brands. So where are marketers getting their social media information? From this survey, it’s not primarily the traditional advertising publishers, although a few of them did make the list.

The battle to grab market share from Apple, be it from the iPad or iPhone, is going to be an interesting story over the next couple of years, and should offer interesting insights into the power of a brand versus a low price competitor.

Perhaps the most interesting comment is the last line. A seasoned ad exec surprised but the uproar speaks to how much has changed since 2005. That rate of change doesn’t happen in other media platforms.

While I can see the protesters points, this is a pretty blurry line. Magazines have always written cover story articles about dead celebrities, and obviously they’re trying to sell magazines. Of all these examples of companies who combined tribute with commerce, the Amazon example is probably the most sincere, and seems to have ruffled the fewest feathers.

I’m still not convinced QR codes are ready for prime time just yet, but if you’re going to do them, these examples of creative looking QR code designs would be a great start. At least these make me want to use them.

There’s been a lot of talk of loyalty programs of recent, and the merger between that and social media is obvious. Hospitality businesses are well-suited candidates for this type of program, and this is one of the offerings in the hotel business.

More than anything, I think this shows how something as seemingly simple as video sharing has impacted so many people in so many situations and environments, and draws a common thread across all of them.

A battle of the page design strategies between Microsoft (Bing) and Google. While Bing has supported their page launch with a significant paid media effort, I can see how this more emotional greeting is a great shot at Google’s supposed strength; simplicity. It’s like the political debate strategy of attacking, not your opponents weaknesses, but their strengths.

I really like how AmEx understands their value in this corner of the market — creating a coupon experience with less friction for the end consumer. The less behavior changing you have to do, the better.

If you were a Mac user in the 90s, you have to remember how slowly, developers started investing less and less effort in their Mac apps, relative to the PC versions. Android is looking more and more like the new Windows. Better? No. But cheaper, more widely available, and thus gaining a larger customer base? Yes.

Given Google’s lofty brand status and massive reach in the technology world, I’m not surprised to see them come out of the blocks this strong. I don’t think 10% of Facebook’s US traffic is really the traction point for them. But the next few months could be very interesting.

A revealing, if not interesting, exploration of the relationship between these two. Facebook clearly has little to lose in this deal, and it shows Zynga’s heavy reliance on Facebook for the success of it’s platform. Like all the brand pages themselves, Facebook has put themselves in a position where they’re the only game in town, and if it weren’t for Facebook, the reality is, companies like Zynga would likely be a shell of their current selves.

I like the bookend effect of the first and last projections. Firstly, the CEO of Virgin Atlantic reminds us that big, mass media still packs a lot of power. And then a Yahoo! Research scientists tells us the future of marketing will be more and more scientific. Of course, both are correct, and like the influx of technology into marketing, the ones who can blend the analytical with the emotional will have the most consistently good ideas.

If you’d like a quick glimpse of the future of the internet, this is your article. I’ve posted on the “Internet of Things” before, and this is a good outline of what parts of our lives that will touch. It’s also good to see a more buzz-friendly term, “M2M” emerge. Stands for “Machine-to-machine”.

I’m not digging the design, but have to say the FB button is nice functionality. The messaging is well integrated to the FB experience, as well. It also looks more rugged than most of the large screen smartphones. All that, combined with the $50 pricing, should make this a good product for you mobile users who primarily use texting for their communications.

Where MSFT spends their money is where they think the future is. I really like how the explanation of this technology sounds so simple. Simplicity is undoubtedly an even bigger factor for mobile than it is with desktop computing.

Firstly, keep in mind that stats on Facebook ad CTRs are very new, and there’s an obviously broad range to the data. But it’s not surprising to see money going into Facebook’s paid ads to support the money going into brand pages. Additionally, Facebook has made recent hires to improve the performance of their display ads, so this could be the start of a longer trend.

The data is a little thin, and Twitter is not Facebook — Google’s ultimate target — but nonetheless, this is an impressive start. If this is even close to accurate, it indicates Google has done a good job leveraging their size and influence to generate both buzz and desire (or in social stats terms, Mentions and Positive Sentiment ;) for Google+.

A good update of figures around smartphone penetration in the US. Most interesting is that while accessing the Internet daily is common among smartphone users (68%), that could be in part because about 1/3 of them report not having high-speed broadband at home.

There’s no question the more you know about someone the more effectively you can target them. This lift they report in performance is nothing short of remarkable: 7.5% click-thru rates, and a 4.5% conversion rate. What I’m curious about is if targeting technologies will diminishing returns as the volume increases, the way most new media marketing tactics do. After all, people only have so much to spend.

When Color launched I doubted it’s odds and mentioned I’d be curiously following the story. Here’s how it’s evolved. This is the same issue big businesses are running into every day. The question is, Why would a startup ever saddle itself with the baggage of a big business?

I completely agree with the stated value of insights that can be pulled from a brand’s Facebook Page. However, I’d emphasize less about specifically requesting input, and more on simply observing what your fans and your competitors are responding to over a period of several months. Both can be insightful, but the latter will be more objective.

New ad units being supported for standardization by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. I think the big issue around rich media is that it becomes too expensive to produce, when clients could put that money into more long-term site assets.

More stats on the growing mobile ad market. Money is pouring into these media units because they’re working. And right now, I think they’re working because they’re unique. Of course, banners once ‘worked’ and were quite unique. The obvious challenge is, How does mobile advertising scale as users see more and more ads?

I wouldn’t normally post about a new travel search site, but this is a great example of how a killer user interface can make all the difference. Definitely check out the site’s flight search technology.

Even if you don’t plan or buy media, trends like this do a lot to shape creative budgets, which of course determines what you can do production-wise. If web video goes the same route as banners, look for production budgets to go through the floor.

Many of the most striking examples of how mobile and social are changing the world come from the least likely users. That’s probably the single biggest indicator of the potential power that I can think of.

Making a website as visually impacting as possible without using Flash has been a real issue now that iPads are the dominant tablet. That could change, but the need for more universal solutions will likely continue to be an issue. This is a series of good examples of how an image-based gallery can be presented that will work across all platforms.

With recent developments like mobile web and social media transitioning from early adopter to mainstream, I often see direct parallels between these new technologies and the early days of the Web. What this exhibit does, more than anything, is remind us that whatever the coolest gadget is right now, in no-time, it’s going to feel like an 80s brick cellphone.

A lot of useful stats, as well as some good general directions for ways different business models can apply mobile to their marketing mix. Right now, mobile solutions are highly contextual to different business models, but there are a lot of options for companies to get involve

If you’re in the creative field, this is a must read. It’s in line with the broader trend of crowdsourcing in that creative is more and more viewed as something that can come from a much broader set of people than previously thought.

Best quote of the article: “My dream,” says Mr. Weiner, 26, “was to get a job writing comedy and make more than minimum wage watching dogs die.”

This is key because Google’s entire approach to advertising is the elimination of media buyer/seller friction. Paid media is going to be around for a while, but Google’s self-service approach has enabled it to move into the nooks and crannies that small and medium size businesses can take advantage of. Perhaps even more interesting for the future is that Google’s responsive, on-the-fly approach to advertising is well-suited for connecting paid media budgets to social media and content marketing efforts.

Tumblr’s been showing strong user base growth, so it’s interesting to see large brands adopting it. Tumblr still appeals to the early-adopter set, but if that’s a large portion of your target audience, then it makes sense to take your content there.